Historians tell us that Australia – like Siberia – was originally meant to be place where what were termed as incorrigible convicts from Britain would be banished – to spend the rest of their lives as far away from the rest of humanity as possible. And the Hyde Park Barracks in Sydney is perhaps the best place to hear – and also get an intimate feel of this part of Australian history.

As it turns out, the Hyde Park Barracks – where the worst forms of punishment were meted out to the convicts brought to Sydney has today been converted into a museum which is open to the public between nine-thirty in the morning and five in the evening. The Australian authorities are to be congratulated for the step of opening up the Hyde Park Barracks to the public as a museum, because many other cities try to hide – and when possible to blot out – the less flattering parts of their histories. Sydney, on the contrary, attempts to bring this less flattering part of its history to the open, let its visitors to experience it – and as psychologists tell us, this sort of self disclosure can have a very cathartic effect on whoever does it, be it an individual or a community (like a city).

And not only does the Hyde Park Barracks Museum depict how the lives of the convicts brought here must have been like – but it even goes a step a further to help you to actually experience how such lives must have been like in person. The first step towards helping you to this end is by the tales of the lives of the convicts, which is one part of a visit to the museum. After the stories about the lives of the convicts who were brought to the Hyde Park Barracks, you can proceed to one of the punishment boxes on which the most humiliating forms of corporal punishments were meted out to the convicts. Note that these punishments were meted for purely retaliatory (revenge) purpose – and not to reform the convicts – because by bringing them to Australia, the society was sure that it had gotten rid of them.

At the Hyde Park Barracks Museum, you will not only get the opportunity to see what a punishment box looked like – but also to tend into one and feel how one must have felt while going in there. Unless you are a very imaginative person however, you will find it hard to simulate in your mind how a real convict would have felt while going into a punishment box – because you will always have it at the back of your mind that you are acting, and the threat to you is not real, after all.

A visit to the Hyde Park Barracks Museum also gives you the opportunity to feel what it might have felt like to be an unwanted human cargo on board the prison ships which brought the convicts from Britain to Australia.

And for all painful thoughts and feelings it evokes in every sensitive person, a visit to Sydney’s Hyde Park Barracks is likely to be an unforgettable event for every person who gets the opportunity to visit this museum.